‘Old vs new logo’ behind IIM-Ahmedabad student’s shocking suicide, dad tells cops | Ahmedabad News – Times of India

AHMEDABAD: A dispute over whether to use the old or new logo of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) for the upcoming The Red Brick Summit (TRBS) management conclave allegedly led PGP student Akshith Bhukya to end his life, investigating police officials said on Friday.
Himanshu Kumar Verma, DCP, Zone-1 of Ahmedabad, told TOI: “Bhukya’s father B Hemantha arrived in the city and has submitted a complaint to the police alleging role of a woman of the IIM-A in his son’s suicide.” It is not immediately known if the woman is a faculty member, a staffer or a student at the B-school.
Verma said that according to the complaint, “Bhukya and the woman in question had an ongoing dispute over the use of old or new IIM-A logo, which, according to Bhukya’s father, had distressed his son leading him to commit suicide. We are recording statements of various persons in this case and will file a complaint after conducting a thorough inquiry.”
TOI reached out to IIM-A for comment but the query did not elicit any response till Friday evening.
Bhukya, 24, a native of Warangal in Telangana, was found hanging in his hostel room around 3.45pm on Thursday. Following his death, IIM-A authorities cancelled the TRBS scheduled to begin from Friday. Bhukya was the primary coordinator of this event.
A senior police officer said, “During the printing of material for the summit, Bhukya insisted on using the old logo while the woman insisted that only the new logo should be used. This led to frequent disagreements between them. Recently, the woman reportedly warned Bhukya with stern action from the institute.”
In his application of complaint, Bhukya’s father has stated that Bhukya told him about this feud with the woman over the logo,” said the police officer.
Cops said that Bhukya’s father on Friday was handed over the mortal remains and the family would perform his last rites in their native town on Saturday. The IIM-A had organized a prayer meet where faculty members and students offered their condolences over Bhukya’s demise.
Why logo is a touchy issue for the B-school? In November 2022, IIM-A unveiled its new ‘visual identity’ that included new logo and fonts to represent the premier B-school. The B-school had faced protest from many quarters including student alumni and faculty members primarily protesting the new design of Jali, central identity of the B-school since 1964. The new logo did away with an intricate pattern representing Ahmedabad’s famed ₹Sidi Saiyad Jali’ as its visual identity and replaced it with ‘minimalistic’ design to ‘convey more vivid and vibrant brand identity.’ When accessed on Friday evening, The Red Brick Summit website had the old IIM-A logo on top with other brands and at the end of the website whereas all the publicity material including the speaker posters bore the new logo.